By Mark HadleyMonday 3 May 2010MoviesReading Time: 3 minutes
Iron Man 2
Rating: M
Distributor: Paramount
Release Date: 29 April, 2010
We’ve had heroes with relationship issues, heroes with phobias and heroes with addictions but to my recollection Iron Man is the first one to have a midlife crisis.
The long-awaited arrival of the sequel to Iron Man turns out to be well worth the wait. Tony Stark rejected the anonymity we usually associated with superheroes at the end of the first film by openly admitting to the world that he was the man inside the super suit. He begins the second film an even bigger star than his multi-billion dollar weapons industry had already made him. Of course there are quite a few politicians who hate the idea of any mere man having more power than them so he has the government on his back, not to mention other weapons manufacturers who are green with envy. But Iron Man’s biggest challenge by far is a burly Russian physicist who believes Tony’s family stole the technology that makes Iron Man possible from his own broken father.
If you find the above details somewhat scant in plot then let me assure you that I’m simply trying to preserve the ride for you. Though Robert Downey Jnr. continues to be the perfect realization of Tony Stark, and Sam Rockwell provides some scene-stealing performances as his business rival, let’s face it, Iron Man 2 was never going to be the vehicle that would take either of them to the Academy Awards. Iron Man is about the excessive display of wealth, the gratuitous destruction of that wealth and the accompanying explosions. And as a guy’s night out, you can’t do much better.
It’s interesting though that for a fairly straightforward adrenalin fantasy, Iron Man 2 touches briefly on some interesting spiritual issues. After an early encounter between Iron Man and the film’s villain Ivan Renko (Mickey Rourke), better known as Whiplash to comic book fans, Tony Stark asks him why he launched his attack. Renko replies:
“If you can make God bleed then people will cease to believe in him.”
Renko’s ‘insight’ drives the tension of the film. Stark is worried on several levels about what will happen if the public’s faith in Iron Man is eroded. Not only is Whiplash trying to destroy him in the most public way possible but the toxic power source to Stark’s suit threatens to put him into an early grave. He has to avoid any sign of weakness even as he approaches death if his legacy is to endure. In his flashy, public way Tony states his guiding private truth:
“It’s not about you or me. It’s about legacy. What we leave behind for future generations.”
The interesting thing is how tightly bound up standing strong is with securing this legacy. Yet if the brilliant Tony had only spent a few minutes thinking over Renko’s threat, he might have seen the weak ground it stood on. God did bleed, in a very public and shameful way, but it did not diminish His legacy. Instead Jesus’ preparedness to embrace the cross rather than call unleash legions protect himself has resulted in enduring wonder, not rejection. As Iron Man, Stark boasts that he has “… successfully privatized world peace!” However the security he provided and the support he enjoyed lasted only so long as he could wield a bigger stick. Yet Jesus’ preparedness to embrace weakness has inspired far more lasting belief because the people who have come to trust the God who bled know there is no longer any stick to fear.